~ Finding the Truth behind the American Hologram

The Nature of Mankind

Xraymike was kind enough to invite me to post on this site as a collaborator, and I don’t want to delay too long before putting something up. Although I have ideas to pursue, my limited time prevents me from collecting my thoughts and publishing blog posts with much frequency. So what I have to offer with this introductory post is short and derivative, fitting perhaps for the weekend funnies.

I was hipped to an animator, Steve Cutts, whose style and content appeals to my way of thinking. In his video animation, he reveals humanity to be pretty hideous in the way we treat the natural world (ours to kill, consume, and trash at will). Yet we remain blithely unperturbed right up to the end, when we get stomped flat like the bug at the beginning:

Cutts has other animations and media at his website with similar themes. The mixture of truly baleful criticism and jokey tone, with mildly to extremely distorted caricatures, makes them entertaining yet simultaneously hard to watch. But we have a vicarious, narcissistic, rubbernecking streak in us, so it’s doubtful anyone will look away to preserve their innocence (if anyone can be said to have any left).

Whereas many websites absorbed by industrial collapse rely on some combination of scientific reports, journalism, argument, and activism as source material, I tend to go instead for arts and letters, which contribute a dimension lacking in less creative endeavors. Indeed, if the arts are in some fashion an ongoing search for ourselves, expressing our innermost natures and dreams, the sad realization that we’re monsters enacting our own worst nightmares is not a perspective available to most types of people, excepting artists and perhaps political and military leaders.

Sounds like you found the “signal from all the noise”. I do believe the essence of our behavior is camouflaged in endless layers of denial about the consequences of our actions. Its important to weed out the noise and find the real information in all that surrounds us. No doubt we do believe in our fair share of fairytales…

I particularly like this song by Peter Gabriel (buy the album and play this song loudly on your stereo). You might have heard this on Gangs of New York in a simpler version.

“Signal To Noise”

you know the way that things go
when what you fight for starts to fall
and in that fuzzy picture
he writing stands out on the wall
so clearly on the wall

send out the signals deep and loud

and in this place, can you reassure me
with a touch, a smile – while the cradle’s burning
all the while the world is turning to noise
oh the more that it’s surrounding us
the more that it destroys
turn up the signal
wipe out the noise

send out the signals deep and loud

man i’m losing sound and sight
of all those who can tell me wrong from right
when all things beautiful and bright
sink in the night
yet there’s still something in my heart
that can find a way
to make a start
to turn up the signal
wipe out the noise

wipe out the noise
wipe out the noise
you know that’s it
you know that’s it
receive and transmit
receive and transmit
receive and transmit
you know that’s it
you know that’s it
receive and transmit
you know that’s it
you know that’s it
receive and transmit

The real issue is not humankind or humanity, it’s the demand by a specific culture to “civilise” the rest…the rest of everything to the point that most discussions/articles won’t/can’t recognise the consensus trance bubble we “civilised” swim in as being just that, just one big insane dominant cultural model. This is NOT who we are as human animals, who need clean air, clean water, clean food, functional community.

There is an indigenous group of people, in Peru I believe, who said something to the effect that Western(industrial) civilization was made up of “children with ‘Earth-destroying’ machines”.
I wish I could find that article.

About an indigenous South American group who see industrialized as immature: here’s a link to one such group nearby. A NatGeo one-hour profile was gripping. This will let you start exploring: http://www.theelderbrother.com/kogi/index.cfm

“In our relentless search for ‘development’ and material progress it is possible we have alienated ourselves from our deepest human needs, which surely lie in our connections to each other and the Earth,” says Stephen Corry, director of Survival International. ‘‘Tribal peoples still perhaps understand those connections better than most.”

…perhaps the true meaning of what it is to be “civilized” lies not in accruing power and wealth but in respecting the differences of others and accepting the value of human diversity. “The world needs human diversity as much as it needs bio-diversity,” says Stephen Corry….

…Tribal peoples are, of course, not ecological saints, but their largely sustainable and communal ways of living do act as a counterpoint to the damaging excesses and solo living of many “modern” societies, showing us that humanity is about “we”, not “I”, belonging not ownership, human values not economics, balance with nature, not destruction… – link

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OWS knows who really pulls the strings

"...the megawealthy and Washington have become so symbiotic as to be a single entity. Indeed, Occupy's best move, as conservative blogger/financier Gregory Djerejian noted at TheAtlantic.com, was "directing their ire squarely toward the real elites of the country, rather than their bought-and-paid marionettes sitting in Washington."

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